The Story of Ella Caffrey Bennett
by Hokukabo
Summary: Only Mozzie knew that Neal had been looking for his little sister ever since he got out of prison. Mozzie also knew her new identity and where she was living, he protected her while Neal was gone. After Neal came back, he had to protect them both. Unfortunately, that meant lying to Neal.
1. Intro

She didn't like hospitals. Not because of all the obvious reasons, but also because hospitals are part of the system. And as a great man once taught her, she had to stay out of it.

But that same great man was lying in front of her now. Unconscious, with various machines attached to him which made awful beeping noises. Of course the beeping meant he was still alive, but if you ever heard them in a hospital, belonging to someone you love, they were truly awful.

His name wasn't the one that was written on the chart at the foot of the bed. "Ivan Bliminse", the invisible man, was in their system, not her Mozzie.  
The chart also said that they put him in a medically induced coma. When she read that, her heart dropped into her stomach.

After her brother had gotten himself caught, Mozzie was the only thing she had left. He had cared about her, supported her and showed her how to survive. Not everything he taught her was perfectly legal, but when you are Neal Caffrey's little sister, the line between legal and illegal has always been very thin.

But Mozzie never turned her into one of them. She even finished university, properly. She only got in and got a scholarship thanks to one of Mozzie's scams, but she had learned quickly not to ask to many questions. After graduation she got a proper job, an own apartment and was standing on her own feet. She was a librarian now in the New York Public Library.

She had made a promise to herself that she would never need her brother again. She hated him for getting himself arrested and leaving her behind with nothing, but what really turned her around was him breaking out only a few months before the end of his sentence. He clearly didn't care for her anymore, so she decided to stay away from him too.  
Mozzie got a new identity for her. Even he saw that Neal was an influence she shouldn't be dealing with anymore, and until now he kept his word to not tell Neal about her life.

Mozzie being Mozzie was what made staying away from the hospital so hard. She gave in when not knowing drove her crazy at home. She borrowed some scrubs and strolled around the hospital until she found him.  
Seeing her brother on the chair next to his bed didn't surprise her, she stayed out of the room until he finally fell asleep over his book.

It felt so weird. She hadn't seen Neal since before he got himself arrested and didn't expect him to look so… good. Even though he obviously spent the last day and night on that chair, he didn't look like an ex-convict. But he probably never did look like a convict anyway.

Neal shuffled a little in his chair, and she got startled. She managed to draw back out the door, right when he opened his eyes. But he saw her. He got merely a glimpse, but he saw her. Neal was wide awake in an instant and shot out into the corridor, but she had a quick exit route so he couldn't find her.  
"Ella" he whispered. He had been looking for her for so long, he had almost given up. So what was she doing here now?


	2. Part 2

Since that day in the hospital, Neal had nothing but sleepless nights. It had been starting to show on his face and in his eyes, so he'd been spending all day telling Peter that he was alright and not planing any crimes any time soon.

Peter didn't really believe him, but that didn't matter. He was just glad to be coming home, to an empty apartment.

Also, for the first time, he was glad about his anklet. If it wouldn't have held him prisoner in his own home, he might have been running around New York city like a crazy person, assuming that every person he came across could be her. Or even worse, he would be following Mozzie.

Neal really wanted to still trust him, he was the only one he had always trusted. But apparently everything Mozzie ever told him, was a lie. At least everything concerning Ella. Neal wanted to believe that there must be a good reason why Mozzie would do something like that, but he couldn't come up with anything.

When Neal got arrested, and thereby had to abandon his little sister without any goodbyes, he asked Mozzie to look out for her. To find her and help her stand on her own feet. Of course Mozzie agreed, but days later he got a message to Neal, saying that he couldn't find her, that nobody had seen her, but that he would keep looking.

Neal never heard from Mozzie again as long as he was in prison. When they met again, after Neal got out, Mozzie claimed he never found Ella. He promised to still help Neal look for her, but Neal knew four years gave a person enough time to disappear. But he also knew that people always leave a trace, so he never stopped looking.

If Peter knew how many case files Neal had stuck his nose into, always afraid a picture of Ella would show up in one of them, he would put Neal back to prison instantly.

After Neal had seen Ella in the hospital, he had searched the whole building but didn't find any trace of her. When Mozzie woke up, Neal wanted to confront him right there, but even Neal Caffrey wasn't going to point the finger at somebody who just woke up from a coma.

But that night, when he entered the apartment and saw Mozzie perusing his wine cabinet, all alive and well again, the anger started boiling up. He felt exhausted and annoyed from the day at work with Peter, the past days where he pretended to still be Mozzie's best friend as if nothing happened, from the days and nights just thinking of her and where she might be, how she was doing.

He couldn't hide all that from his face nor from his eyes and Mozzie noticed after he turned around.

"Did the mice anger the lion today?" Mozzie asked, opening a rather expensive looking bottle of wine.

Neal decided that there was no point in waiting any longer. "No, the other lion did."

He got himself a glass and filled it with wine.

Mozzie had taken his glass and went out onto the terrace. "The suit?"

Neal took a deep breath and a last look at Mozzie while they were still on good terms. "It was a pleasure…" he thought to himself and stepped out onto the terrace. "No, you."

Mozzie nearly choked on a sip of wine when Neal said those words.

"What did I do?" he asked innocently.

"While you were in a coma, do you know who visited you?"

Mozzie was just staring at Neal. After a minute, Neal broke the silence. "Come on Moz, I saw her."

"Saw who?" Of course Mozzie was trying to circumnavigate the truth, but that only made Neal angrier. "Ella, I saw her."

"Oh." Mozzie quickly took another sip out of his glass and stood up, but Neal pushed him back down again with one hand.

"Sit, and talk. You are not going anywhere."


	3. Part 3

After leaving the hospital, Ella had felt like Neal was following her. Even after a couple of days she was still feeling like he was around. Every street corner, every bookshelf at the library - she thought he was hiding behind it. Either following her or at least trying to find her.

The decision to just leave him had never been an easy one, and she only managed to stick to it because she had never seen him again after he went to prison, except for newspapers and wanted posters of course.

But seeing him right there in the hospital, so vulnerable… it made her cringe.

Mozzie had told her that Neal had been looking for her, on from the day he got out of prison. She knew he probably just wanted to make sure she was okay, but she didn't want him back in her life. Ella put so much work into living an honest, and most importantly real, life, that she was sure even letting Neal know about it would ruin Ella Tabernackle's life forever.

Yes, Tabernackle was one of Neal's aliases, but apparently Mozzie was right in thinking that Neal would never suspect that she'd use one of his aliases to hide from him.

Maybe he never really cared or he would have at least checked it out, that was something Ella thought about a lot. Right now, she was convinced that if Neal really cared, if he had wanted to find her, wanted to see her, after their hospital encounter he would have found her by now.

But he didn't care, probably Mozzie had been lying too, about Neal trying to find her after he got out of prison. Neal had pulled heist after heist, even while working for the FBI. If he had enough energy to put everything into a u-boat treasure hunt, he didn't really try to find her.

Something Mozzie didn't even know is, that Ella tried to make it easy for Neal. By some very well forged papers, she was still his sister. Steve Tabernackle's sister, but for Neal that should be close enough.

If he'd ever gone looking for a girl named Ella with one of his aliases, he would have found her in the phone book or on the internet. If he'd ever gone back to their old apartment, he would have found an old bottle of wine, leading him right to her. If she'd ever gotten into an accident, he'd still have been the one the hospital would have tried to call. If Neal had ever really cared, New York had all the clues, as obvious as possible for a girl who tried to avoid the police and the FBI.

Being at home drove her crazy, so these days she was coming into work early and was the one who closed up after everyone left. She didn't expect to see Neal in the library, it felt like a safe haven. One that, even if Neal knew, he wouldn't penetrate. But when she came in that morning, one of her co-workers met her at the door.

"There is a guy waiting for you in the crime section. He looked like he had been here all night, just waiting for us to open up, and the first thing he asked for was you. Do you want me to call the police?" Sally, her co-worker, seemed genuinely concerned.

"Did he say what his name was? What does he look like?" Ella asked.

"I don't know his name, but what he was wearing might have once been a suit. It was all crumpled up, the tie was loosened, the jacket dirty, merely the hat still looked good. To be honest, even worn out like that, he still looks pretty sexy."

"Ugh, please don't talk like that about my brother!" Sally was staring at Ella with wide eyes, and Ella herself couldn't believe she just said that out loud.

Should she stay or should she go? Where would she go to? Nothing was safe anymore now that Neal had shown up at her workplace.


	4. Part 4

When Ella saw Neal from a safe distance he didn't look anything like the brother she knew. She couldn't remember ever seeing him in a crumpled shirt before, now she had seen that twice in a month. What made it worse was that this time she was the reason for it. He had been outside the library, probably all night, just waiting for her.

Looking at him like that, she almost felt sorry. Sorry for him, and sorry for running and hiding. But only almost… because looking at him also made all the memories come back. Memories of the first couple of nights she had spent out on the street, with no money and no place to go. The things she had to do to survive until Mozzie had finally found her… just because that man sitting right in front of her had given everything up, everything including himself, for a girl.

"You don't get to be here!"

Neal was sitting at a table and looked as if he would fall asleep any moment. He was a mess, but his face lightened up when he saw Ella. She still kept a save distance from him.

"I…" He got up immediately and tried to take her hand, he might have even tried to hug her, but Ella backed away.

"No. You don't get to talk to me, and you shouldn't even be here. I'm guessing that you forced it out of Mozzie in some cruel way, and I can't blame him, it was my own fault. I shouldn't have shown up at the hospital. But you shouldn't have come here either. I had reasons to run and hide from you, Neal Caffrey, and I will do it again. Please, just leave, or I will call security."

Neal had rarely ever been speechless, but all the hate in Ella's eyes, in her words and how she backed away from him... He felt like someone had punched him right into his heart. She was not his little sister anymore, looking at her like that it felt like she was a different person all together.

He had all these words laid out for her, pacing up and down in front of the library had given him some time to do that. The fear of Peter showing up before he could talk to Ella was sitting on his shoulders, but Neal just had to get out of the house after Mozzie had finally spilled that Ella was living right here in New York.

He had felt relieved and angry at the same time. Angry at her for hiding from him, angry at his best friend for keeping this from him, and most of all, angry at himself for driving away the only family he had left. So far away, that she got herself a new identity just so he wouldn't find her.

All this time, when he was thinking that she was hiding from the police, that she might still be afraid that Peter would take her in if she had approached Neal, she was only hiding from him.

He would have to explain everything to Peter when he showed up. If the anklet, for whatever reason, hadn't triggered the alarm yet, Neal was sure Peter would come and find him when he won't show up for work.

Neal wanted to say something to Ella, but he couldn't. He could hardly bare to look at her and what all the hate and pain and hiding had turned her into. He turned around and walked a few steps away, somewhat prepared to just be done with this chapter of his life. But then he stopped.

"I'm sorry." he said, not turning around to face Ella again. His voice was shaking. "I'm so very very sorry. You have the right to hate me, and to hide from me. I just… I had to make sure you were okay. I…"

"Okay?" Ella's voice almost echoed through the aisle. "Turn around and look at me, Neal."

Neal turned around and Ella was standing right in front of him. He could have touched her, hugged her, but her glare captured him.

"You didn't care about me being okay when you walked right into that trap for your girlfriend. You didn't care about me being okay when I had to use fake names, because just seeing a police car scared the crap out of me. You didn't care about me being okay when you were in prison while I was trying to stay alive on the street, doing whatever was necessary until Mozzie finally found me. You didn't care about me being okay when you escaped prison, four months before you could have been a free man, again for the same stupid girl…" Ella's voice broke and tears started running down her eyes. Neal tried to wipe them away, but she pushed away his hand. He so desperately wanted to hold her…

"You always kept running after a girl who never really loved you, sacrificing everything and everyone else along the way. You know, the brother who truly cared about me being okay disappeared the moment he had met Kate Moreau, and I don't think he will ever return from that."


	5. Part 5

_(Author's note: maybe not as good as the other parts, I'm sick right now, but I didn't want you to have to wait too long, it'll pick up agan, I promise)_

Ella had just walked away without saying another word, and Neal was to stunned to go after her.

He decided it would be best to just leave, he probably shouldn't have come here in the first place. Mozzie had been right to hide her from him.

When Neal left the library, Team Caffrey was already waiting for him outside: Mozzie, Elizabeth and Peter.

"You're late for work." Peter looked at his watch, more jokingly than to really be condescending.

"I suppose Mozzie told you everything?" Neal didn't even stop to talk to them, he could hardly look at them and just walked down the street. He wanted to get away from the library. He also wanted to be alone now, but he guessed that was not really an option.

"How did it go?" Elizabeth asked and tried to stop Neal by putting her hand on his arm, but he shrugged it off. When he came to a halt, Peter and Elizabeth nearly crashed into him.

"Listen. Can this, just this once, be my own business? I guess I'm sorry I left my radius without calling you first, but this was something I had to do. This is my private life, my family. She has done nothing wrong all her life, so she's not some FBI case you can look into. Let's just forget this ever happened and go to work." Neal sighed heavily.

He spotted a taxi coming towards them and put out his hand, but suddenly Mozzie was right there in front of him, shoving his hand down. "No."

"No what?" Even though Neal now knew that Mozzie was right to keep his secret, he was still angry at him.

"No. You can't pretend this never happened, and you can't just walk away from her again. You did that once before, and see how that turned out. Ella needs you. She won't own up to it, but she does. She would have needed you for all those years that you were never there. She learned how to cope, but is that really how it is supposed to be between you two? You were so close before…"

"Before Kate happened? Is that what you wanted to say? Because she just told me that. She told me Neal never returned from being Nick Halden. And you know what, maybe she is right. You think so too, or you wouldn't have hidden her from me. I'm no good for her, so she's probably better off without me." Neal put his hand up for another taxi, but Mozzie shoved it down again.

"I did that because the Neal that was still crazy about Kate, who put everything at risk again to find her, would have been no good for Ella. That would have just hurt her again."

Mozzie's words were another punch in the stomach for Neal. He turned around and walked away again. But Mozzie grabbed his arm and even as Neal tried to shake it off he wouldn't let go.

"You don't get to walk away from her again. Even if I have to drag you back in there again myself, even if I need the help from the suit for that."

"Stop it Mozzie, she walked away from me in there. She doesn't want me in her life anymore."

"She doesn't know the new Neal, so she can't possibly know what she wants." Peter startled both Mozzie and Neal. They had almost forgotten that Peter and Elizabeth were still there.

"The new Neal?" Neal asked surprised. He had least expected Peter to say those words.


End file.
